Archive for December 28th, 2008

I guess the trade of Ryan Freel and the loss of Corey Patterson left Reds management desperate for another singles-only hitter who barely contributes to your team, they signed Willy Taveras over the weekend to a 2-year deal. Sure, Taveras has lots of speed and had a ton of infield hits (37 bunt singles in 2007!) but he is incapable of scoring runs. Even on that strong offensive 2007 Rockies team, which scored 860 runs, and in spite of hitting .320 and stealing 33 bags, Taveras managed a scant 64 runs.

Yes, it was in only 97 games, but that’s a pretty good sample size, and this year in 133 games he also scored only 64 runs, this time stealing 68 bases. Maybe it has something to do with having an anemic OPS and thus being incapable of hitting at the top of the lineup. In 2007, which by any reasonable measure was Taveras’ best year, he managed an OPS+ of 89. 89! He had 120 hits last season and 102 of them were singles, and that’s with playing in Colorado with the spacious alleys. Essentially, he can’t hit the ball out of the infield, and if he can’t leg out a hit he has no chance of ever getting one.

Also, his defense is atrocious. For someone who is so fast he gets bad reads on balls, misses plays he should get and doesn’t patrol center field impressively at all.

Last night in a battle of professional basketball teams the Washington Wizards outlasted the Oklahoma Stupid Names 104-95 in DC. The only reason this game received any attention whatsoever, considering that the two teams were so awful, was that exact reason. The Wizards were 4-23 coming into the game and the SNs had gone a robust 3-27.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there had never been an NBA game matching teams who had played at least 25 games combining for worse records…

“It’s no fun having three wins, but it’s important we stay together and we continue to compete for one another,” Oklahoma City interim coach Scott Brooks said.

“Not one guy in this locker room is a loser. Unfortunately, we are not getting wins like we feel like we should.”

Sorry Coach, gotta disagree . If you have won only three games at this point, you are in fact, losers. You are getting housed. You remind me of the Boston Celtics circa 2006. I mean, right?!? That’s not good company, that team lost 18 straight at one point. I know you only recently took over the team, but let’s not bullshit one another, your team totally blows. And that’s even with Durant stroking the ball and scoring 20 per! Your season is over and it isn’t even 2009 yet.

Jets Coach Eric Mangini is one of the most cloak-and-dagger wielders of the National Football League’s injury list. The phenomenon peaks with one of the league’s most common injury areas — hamstrings — which have been pulled, strained or otherwise aggrieved 1,154 times among the league’s 32 teams since 2006.

Amazingly, the Jets have apparently had only one hamstring injury in Mangini’s three seasons. It belonged to the former receiver Tim Dwight, whose malady was listed less specifically as “thigh” almost every week of the 2006 season except for Week 4, when it snuck in as “hamstring” before scampering back.

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